Is there room for one more reality TV series featuring a raging, foul-mouthed narcissist?
Last week, the Oxygen cable network launched a new Tuesday night series, “The Naughty Kitchen with Chef Blythe Beck,” about the drama surrounding the opening of a new Dallas restaurant, Central 214.
Beck is apparently a “star” chef in Texas, but based on the debut episode that Oxygen sent me, the woman doesn’t have the charisma to carry a series and her staff is a collection of mopes and dopes with little of the energy and humor associated with restaurant work (the two teeny bopper self-described “door whores” – below – who greet guests and answer the phone wouldn’t last five minutes in a Manhattan or Fairfield County establishment).
Oxygen clearly hoped it had found a new female Gordon Ramsay in Beck. The chef certainly qualifies as a obscenity-spouting, egomaniac, but Beck doesn’t have the credentials to justify her Ramsay-like behavior. Ramsay came to reality television because of his long and hugely successful career as a chef and restauranteur in London and New York — he had a hit show on British TV, “Kitchen Nightmares,” before U.S. producers came calling for the current Fox series, “Hell’s Kitchen.”
“The Naughty Kitchen” serves up food that looks like glorified roadhouse grub — Beck tells us that it is “naughty” to present so much fried, high fat content food in a boutique hotel eatery, but it looks more like a rip-off. The first episode climaxes with Beck in tears upon learning that the Dallas Morning News has panned Central 214. That verdict combined with the perverse charmlessness of the show’s star should have been enough for Oxygen to pull the plug before putting “The Naughty Kitchen” on the air.
What’s the point of a restaurant-based reality show with food you don’t want to eat and a chef you wouldn’t want to meet?
(Episode two of “The Naughty Kitchen with Chef Blythe Beck” is on Oxygen tonight at 10 p.m.)
Blythe’s spirit is intoxicating, and it must intimidate you. I dont think she ever set out to please everyone, but she makes a lot of us happy, and that is what really matters.
I’ll take Joe’s word for it. There’s already too many bad shows about cooking on tv. Chef Ramsey created his shows on his own style. But, he’s also a decorated chef. People will line up to take his abuse because they will learn something. Most novice cooks are masochists at heart anyway. And, as much as I love to watch overweight “gourmets” shovel crap in their mouths, it’s not surprising that these “foul mouthed narcissists” are giving it a whirl.
Yikes! You must work for Oxygen. The show is an undercooked turkey. I’ve never met a restaurant host like the two duds on display here – in my former life as a waiter or now as a customer.
This review is absurd. The Manhattan and Fairfield County reference is laughable. Have you been to a restaurant in those areas? Ever? Way to show complete utter ignorance.